


an everyday sort of magic

by SEMellark



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Makoto is the kind of guy who would write poetry if he could, of if I could I should say, slight angst, sweethearts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 12:57:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4565478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEMellark/pseuds/SEMellark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haru carries home in his eyes. He's the long walks they took near the ocean and the races they swam in the name of the bonds they’d forged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	an everyday sort of magic

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I play with these scenes too much but...
> 
> I'm in love with the idea of love. And Makoto and Haru make me want to be idealistic, even optimistic, sometimes, about life and love and relationships. These boys do a lot for me. I want the world for them.

Makoto doesn’t compare falling in love to things like sleeping. It was more like a pilgrimage for him, long and tired and fraught with uncertainty, no real direction to be taken.

He credits the summer, the way the ocean spray spreads over the town and brings with it the illusion of mystery. Iwatobi may just be a small fishing town, but absolutely magical things happen there, of that Makoto is certain.

It’s in the air, in the water that lines the coast. Infants take their screeching first breaths and the elderly take their last surrounded by the ones who loved them and the memories of a life well lived. Friendships are dissolved and then rekindled, others meticulously kept and maintained, and young couples fall in love for the first time.

Makoto likes to think that he carries that magic with him wherever he goes. He lived there for seventeen years, after all, walked its trails and stared up at its night skies. He was born there. He lived and breathed and helped others do the same. He fell in love.

But then, he fell in love with a lot of things in those seventeen years. And it’s kind of silly, that level of sentimentality, though Makoto is hard pressed to care. Even now, years after he left, there are still places in his heart for the grooves that marked Ren and Ran’s growth along with his own in the bathroom door, the steps that lead up to Haru’s front porch, even the push and pull of the ocean tide that Makoto feared for so long.

He loves Iwatobi, loves the way it shaped and molded his character like an immovable cliff on a shoreline, and he misses the atmosphere everyday. But he carries a large piece of it with him in the form of intelligent blue eyes and a constant weight in the palm of his hand.

Haru carries home in his eyes. He's the long walks they took near the ocean and the races they swam in the name of the bonds they’d forged.

He was arguably his first love. Their history extended so far back that the likelihood of anything less was impossible. And Makoto adored him, his companion on the long journey neither knew they were taking together. He doesn’t think he did a good job of hiding it, not that he ever really tried.

They were sweet on one another from the beginning, or so Makoto’s mother always says. Wherever Makoto went, Haru followed, and vice versa. And they were happy that way. For a long time, neither of them needed anything else.

But just as Haru carries the good of Iwatobi, he also carries the bad. Sometimes Makoto looks at him and remembers the years of constant vigilance, when he took care to determine Haru’s moods and react accordingly to maintain the fragile balance Rin had created when he departed for Australia the second time.

He’ll remember the way Haru used to look at him, ranging from exasperated to calculating to deceptively blank, and it hurts, thinking back to those days when he sometimes wondered if Haru even cared about anything anymore, but then he recalls how Haru looks at him now and is calmed.

But he never _truly_ thought Haru didn’t care. If he had, Makoto doesn’t think he would’ve tried as hard as he did. He’d known Haru was just scared, that something had happened involving Rin and it had affected Haru enough to make him retreat even further within himself.

Makoto tried to help as best he could, they all did, but the only person capable of soothing the sting was the one who had caused it. So when Rin came back, Makoto’s relief was palpable.

Things got better. Haru smiled and laughed as sparingly as ever, but Makoto fell in love all over again. The magic was all around them, that last summer.

It had a different effect on everyone. Makoto was focusing on the summer, unaware that Haru was thinking of how it was the last, of finality, of not knowing what came next. It became obvious to him over the weeks through Haru’s refusal to talk about the future when it was all Makoto wanted to do.

He wanted to share those plans with Haru, even if he was still a little murky on the details himself. He wanted his best friend to be apart of those plans, at his side or from a distance, it didn’t really matter to Makoto, so long as Haru was present.

The frustrations were bound to boil over, even between them, they who had never fought before. And it was odd, yelling at Haru, trying to make him understand when he’d only ever let Haru do things at his own pace. Change was inevitable, but it never occurred to Makoto until that night that things would change between _them._

When Haru ran, Makoto called out to him, though he didn’t follow. He’d been physically incapable, not after seeing the expression on Haru’s face when he brought up Tokyo. He had been in so much pain, and Makoto was the one to cause it. The knowledge left him cold and empty, and he went home that night feeling sick to his stomach.

But not sick enough that he didn’t call Rin to ask for his help.

Those days that Haru was gone were the worst in Makoto’s life, and he’s had his fair share of horrible days. Not knowing where they stood with one another was torture, and Makoto spent copious amounts of time with Nagisa and Rei just to distract himself from the doubt.

It was unnecessary. Rin said they were coming home, and Makoto immediately left for the airport, his heart just a fluttering little thing in his chest, and it didn’t stop until he saw Haru again, when their eyes met and Makoto’s nerves just seemed to evaporate with the sun.

He remembers a lot about that day, the happiness and fond exasperation within himself as he watched Haru try to say whatever it was he needed to, only to end up staring at Makoto’s feet with such a worrisome expression, like he was ashamed of his own inability to communicate.

It made Makoto brave. “Haru.” And when he looked up, whatever he saw in Makoto’s expression made Haru’s breath leave him in a shaky exhale. “Welcome home.”

And just from Haru’s eyes, bright and filled with such honest adoration and _wonder_ … Makoto had known his cumbersome journey was finally over.

The immediate change was needed and welcome. Makoto told Haru about his goals, and Haru accepted them with a smile and soft words of encouragement. They went to nationals. They lost. They smiled and cried and laughed with their friends and Makoto thanked Iwatobi over and over again for giving him that, for giving him Haru.

And Haru reciprocated. He chose Tokyo, and Makoto wasn’t capable of pretending that he didn’t know why. They spent their days together saying goodbye to the town that had raised them and its inhabitants, and they took turns going to each other’s houses to help pack.

The day they left, Makoto let his mother cry over him and stood back and watched with a smile as she treated Haru to the same goodbye. Ren and Ran clung to their legs and begged for a change in plan until Makoto’s father told them that the boys were leaving for their next big adventure in life. Makoto had never seen his father cry before, and that moment was the closest he’d ever come.

Haru’s own parents had even returned for the sendoff, and Haru hugged his mother as tightly as she held him while his father shook Makoto’s hand.

It all felt strangely like they were… _eloping,_ or something close to it. Makoto told Haru so on the train, comfortable enough to do so what with all that he’d learned in the weeks since Haru had returned.

Haru regarded him with the curious eyes of the boy Makoto had known so long ago, bright with mischief and the memories they were leaving behind. “Aren’t we?”

And Makoto laughed until he cried, because Haru was only partly joking.

**Author's Note:**

> /dust in the wind


End file.
